Chapter 1

Introduction and history of mapping and research

P. C. BANDOPADHYAY

Department of Geology, University of Calcutta, 35 Ballygunge Circular Road, Kolkata-19, India

hiyabando@yahoo.co.uk

Abstract: This chapter examines the history of reconnaissance and geological mapping work on the Andaman and Nicobarislands. To understand early exploration it is necessary to review the driving forces for colonization, including the developmentof the Andaman Islands as a penal colony for political prisoners. Geological mapping conducted in the colonial era continuedafter India gained independence in 1947 and expanded in the 1980s to include hydrocarbon and mineral resources. More recentwork has placed greater emphasis on supporting field observation data with geochronological, geochemical and petrologicalanalyses.

Gold Open Access: This article is published under the terms of the CC-BY 3.0 license.

Floating in splendid isolation in the NE Indian Ocean, a curvedchain of islands, islets and rocks constitute the Andaman andNicobar archipelago, the central part of the Western SundaArc that extends from the outer-arc islands of Sumatra in thesouth to highlands of the Indo-Burma Ranges (IBR) in thenorth (Fig. 1.1). The north–south-aligned archipelago locatedat longitude 92–948 E and latitude 6–148 N is flanked by theBay of Bengal to the west and by the Andaman Sea to the east.The Andaman–Nicobar chain stretches for over 700 km with amaximum width of c. 58 km and has a total land area of8249 km2. The islands are an exposed segment of the accre-tionary wedge (outer arc) of the Sunda subduction system,where the Indian Plate subducts beneath the Sunda Plate.Ongoing uplift of the sediment-dominated accretionary wedgehas exposed, over a relatively small area, a diverse range ofrock types associated with the subduction complex (dismem-bered ophiolites, volcanic-arc rocks, trench-slope deposits,submarine fan turbidites, pelagic sediments and the sedimentsof shelf and reef environments), making it an ideal area forinvestigating subduction processes.

The region remains tectonically active and experiences fre-quent arc volcanism and earthquakes. The most recent event,the 26 December 2004 earthquake and tsunami, triggeredmud eruptions from mud volcanoes on Baratang Island, lavaeruptions from Barren Island volcano (Fig. 1.2) and metre-scale subsidence and uplift across the island chain (Fig. 1.3).Searle (2006) documented uplift of the coral reefs along thecoast of the Interview Island off the west coast of MiddleAndaman, and his book Colliding Continents (Searle 2012)contains a useful summary of the December 2004 IndianOcean tsunami with particular reference to the AndamanIslands.

Books written on the geology of the Andaman and Nicobarislands tend to be limited in their scope, coverage and depth.Sharma & Srinivasan (2007) published a book on the geologyof Andaman and Nicobar but only dealt with the Neogenesequences. The Pictorial Monograph of the Barren IslandVolcano by Shanker et al. (2001) is mainly a photographicdocumentation of recent and past volcanic eruptions, with alimited and inadequate description and discussion of thepetrology and origin of the volcano. The Geology and MineralResources of Andaman-Nicobar Islands published by theGeological Survey of India in 2012 (Miscellaneous Publica-tion No 30, part XX) contains 40 pages of text that only outlinethe geology, although it does include a geological map at the1:1 000 000 scale. The aim of this memoir is to provide a

more complete, integrated and comprehensive treatment ofthe geology, stratigraphy and tectonics and a first systematicattempt to understand the geomorphology. This first chapteroutlines the history of the islands and the early explorationand mapping.

History of colonization

The tortuous history of the Andaman–Nicobar islandsincludes a period of European colonization, serving as apenal colony, and a short-lived brutal Japanese occupation(1942–45) (Dasgupta 2002; Singh 2006). The first recordedEuropean settlers were from the Danish East India Companywho arrived on the Nicobar Islands on 12 December 1755.On 1 January 1756 the Nicobar islands were made a Danishcolony, first named New Denmark (‘The Last Island of theSavages’) and later (December 1756) Frederick’s Islands(Frederiksøerne). Between 1754 and 1756 the islands wereadministrated from Tranquebar, the former Danish colony inwhat is now a district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. TheBritish were not far behind; in the early 1780s captains Ritchieand Thomas Forrest, a navigator who worked for the BritishEast India Company, surveyed the Andaman islands sincethey were located along the trade routes of India, Burma andSE Asia and seen as strategically important. At around thistime the British began to establish small settlements on theAndaman islands rather than on the Danish Nicobars.Although Britain became the dominant colonial power in theregion, Denmark did not formally cede its Nicobar territoryuntil 1868.

One of the earliest and most important British surveys wasinstigated by the Governor General of India, Lord Cornwallis,who in 1788 dispatched Lieutenant Archibald Blair of theBombay Marines to survey the Andaman Islands, instructinghim to raise the Union Flag and to set up a harbour where mer-chant and navy ships might be refreshed and refitted (Blair1793). Most of the surveying took place between 1789 and1790. The detailed instructions provided by Lord Cornwallisincluded mention of visiting the volcano on Barren Island todetermine if significant depositions of sulphur (an essentialingredient of gunpowder) was present (Phillimore 1945). In1789 formal possession was taken by the Indian Government(Mouat 1862) and a small squadron of His Majesty’s shipsunder Commodore Cornwallis, brother to the Governor Gene-ral, visited the islands to extend the survey work, including the

From: Bandopadhyay, P. C. & Carter, A. (eds) 2017. The Andaman–Nicobar Accretionary Ridge: Geology, Tectonics and Hazards.

Geological Society, London, Memoirs, 47, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1144/M47.1

# 2017 The Author(s). Published by The Geological Society of London. Publishing disclaimer: www.geolsoc.org.uk/pub_ethics

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Fig. 1.1. Location maps of Andaman–Nicobar archipelago and names of individual islands and key places.

P. C. BANDOPADHYAY2

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harbour at Nanconwry on Nicobar; this led to the DanishGovernor at Tranquebar making a formal protest to theBritish. Blair held charge of the settlement for three years,first with the establishment of Port Cornwallis on ChathamIsland, part of South Andaman. In 1792 it was relocated toNorth Andaman while keeping the same name, but was aban-doned in 1796. Between 1786 and 1796 the first attempts weremade to establish a penal colony, but the high death rate led toclosure and transfer of the penal role to Malaysia. Over thenext 40 years the British improved the settlement and harbourfacilities, and strengthened its hold on the territory.

The strategic importance of Port Cornwallis was made clearin 1824 when it became the rendezvous point for the Bengal andMadras troops on their way to Rangoon to join the First

Burmese War between the British and Burmese for control ofNE India (and to deny the French access to Burmese harbours).In the 1830s and 1840s, shipwrecked crews who landed on theAndaman were often attacked and killed by the natives and theislands had a reputation for cannibalism. One headline eventtook place in 1839 when Johann Wilhelm Helfer, a Germandoctor and explorer who collected animals and plants for theIndian government, was attacked and killed. Native attackswere commonplace as experienced by the survivors of thetroopships Runnymede and the Briton that were shipwreckedon 12 November 1844 by the same storm among the islandsthat form Ritchie’s Archipelago (Fig. 1.1). Survivors (number-ing in excess of 630) suffered spear and arrow attacks by thenatives, although none were reported killed by these actions

Fig. 1.2. A view of Barren Island from the west. The

foreground shows basaltic flows, the centre

background a perfectly symmetrical scoria cone

with a summit crater associated with

Strombolian-type eruptions, and on the left a cliff

section of an eroded older stratovolcano consisting

of alternating layers of lava and fragmentary ejecta

can be seen.

Fig. 1.3. The mega-thrust earthquakes

that created the tidal waves during

December 2004 not only destroyed

property but also caused permanent

submergence leading to a local

sea-level change partially submerging

houses and temples, Campbell Bay,

Great Nicobar Island.

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(Journal of the Wreck of the Troop Ships ‘Briton’ and ‘Runny-mede’, published by Pelham Richardson in 1845). In 1855the government proposed another settlement on the islands,including a convict colony. The Indian Rebellion of 1857,the Sepoy Mutiny, delayed construction but also gave it animperative.

After the Indian Rebellion of 1857 was quelled, the largenumbers of prisoners were seen as a political threat to theBritish establishment; it was therefore considered desirablethat prisoners be removed from the Indian subcontinent. InNovember 1857 Lord Canning sent a commission headed byDr F. Mouat (Inspector General of Jails in Bengal) to the Anda-mans to find a suitable site for a new penal colony. The recom-mendations of the committee for the establishment of a penalsettlement in the ‘old harbour’, to be renamed Port Blair,were accepted in January 1858. Under the direction of JamesPattison Walker, the penal colony was first and foremost arepository for political prisoners. Building started in 1896and was mainly completed by 1906. It used the latest panopti-con design, allowing the independence activists to be closelywatched. There were 698 cells designed for solitary con-finement; each cell measured 4.5 by 2.7 m with a single venti-lation window 3 m above the floor. A notable prisoner from1910 to 1920 was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a famousIndian patriot and philosopher, after whom the Port Blair inter-national airport is named. The Indians imprisoned herereferred to the island and its prison as Kala Pani (blackwater) (Dasgupta 2002). The Viper Chain Gang Jail onViper Island was reserved for troublemakers, and was alsothe site of hangings.

The headquarters of the Indian Penal Settlement was basedon Ross Island. The site was badly damaged by an earthquakein 1942 and all that is left today are the overgrown ruins ofthe British establishment (a ballroom, swimming pool, ChiefCommissioner’s house, church, cemetery, hospital, bakeryand barracks). The penal colony closed on 15 August 1947when India gained independence, and since then the CellularJail has served as a museum to the independence movement.In 1969 the jail was declared a national memorial. Anothermemorial, found in the Andaman water sports complex, com-memorates a local uprising that took place on 17 May 1859when local indigenous people from the Great AndamaneseTribe armed with bows and arrows attacked Port Blair. Theevent became known as the ‘Battle of Aberdeen’. Stirred byan escaped convict from the Cellular Jail, the Great Andaman-ese tribe stormed the British post but was easily crushed asthe British had been forewarned. It emerged later that theescaped convict, Dodo Nath, had changed sides and informedthe British of the tribal plans.

The Andaman Islands were later occupied by Japan duringWorld War II between 1942 and 1945 and were nominallyput under the authority of the Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind, anIndian provisional government established in Singapore in1943 supported by Japan. Head of State Netaji Subhash Chan-dra Bose visited the islands during the war, and renamed themas Shaheed (Martyr) and Swaraj (Self-rule). On 30 December1943 during the Japanese occupation, Bose raised the flag ofIndian independence. General Loganathan of the IndianNational Army was made Governor of the Andaman and Nic-obar islands. The Headquarters of the Civil Administrationwas established near the Gurudwara at Aberdeen Bazaar on21 March 1944. The occupation was brutal; it has been esti-mated that up to 2000 inhabitants died between 1942 and1945. The islands were re-occupied by British and Indiantroops of the 116th Indian Infantry Brigade on 7 October1945, to whom the remaining Japanese garrison surrendered.During the independence of both India (1947) and Burma(1948) the departing British announced their intention to reset-tle all Anglo-Indians and Anglo-Burmese on these islands

to form their own nation, although this never materialized.The Andaman Islands formally became part of India in 1950and were declared a union territory in 1956.

Early geological exploration

The first recorded geological reports date to 1840 when DrHelfer visited a few islands of Ritchie’s Archipelago (reportedin Oldham 1885). The first record of mineral investigation forcopper, iron, chromite and platinum group minerals in theSouth Andaman and Rutland islands (Fig. 1.1) can be foundin the report of Mallet (Mallet 1884). Two maps of the Anda-man islands containing geographical information and the dis-tribution of the different tribes were published as early as in1880 (Man & Temple 1880). Although the Geological Surveyof India was established in 1851, it was not until 1884 that thefirst comprehensive mapping of Andaman and associatedislands took place, led by Hobday and Mallet. In 1885, workby Oldham established the first stratigraphic framework. Thegeological investigations before World War II were mainlybased on expedition and reconnaissance traverses. It was per-haps Dr Helfer who provided the first rock descriptions byclassifying them as ‘Quadersandstein’ (Oldham 1885). As amember of the around-the-world Danish scientific cruise,Rink (1847) was the first to examine the geology of the Nico-bar Islands. He divided the rocks of the Nicobar Islands intothree groups: the Brown Coal Formation, Igneous Rocks andOlder Alluvium in ascending order of age. Between 1850and 1864, Quigley, Kurz, Stoliczka, St John and Mallet pro-duced various reports on the lithology and petrography ofrocks from some of the Andaman Islands (Oldham 1885).The first record of microfossils was also likely made duringthis period. As a member of an Austrian scientific cruise onboard the Novara, Hochstetter visited many islands of the Nic-obar group and noted that the Brown Coal Formation andOlder Alluvium proposed by Rink (1847) are variants of thesame formation (Hochstetter 1869). He also proposed usageof the term ‘marl’ as a substitute for Older Alluvium.

Oldham (1885) classified rocks of the Andaman islands intothe older Port Blair Series and younger Archipelago Series,separated by a period of igneous activity. Oldham correlatedthe Brown Coal formation of Rink with the Port Blair seriesand the Nicobar clays of Ball with the Archipelago Series. Tip-per (1911) dealt with the geology of the (mainly north) Anda-man islands and correlated the rocks with those of Nicobar.Work by Gee (1927) covered a larger area including MiddleAndaman, Ritchie’s Archipelago, Rutland and Little Andamanas well as many islands of the Nicobar group, and proposed astratigraphic classification scheme. These studies provided thefoundation for the later more systematic geological studies.

The volcanic islands of Barren and Narcondam were firststudied by Ball (1879, 1888) who also produced notes on thegeology and faunal content of rocks in the vicinity of PortBlair, South Andaman and the Nancowry islands of the Nico-bar group (Ball 1870a, b). Barren and Narcondam islands werefirst mapped by Hobday & Mallet (1885) who also provided animpressive account of field attributes, petrology and eruptivehistory. Their formative work continues to provide the frame-work for many recent studies. Washington (1924) publishedthe first compositional data of volcanic rocks from the Barrenand Narcondam volcanoes.

The beginning of systematic mapping programs

Detailed and systematic geological investigations of theAndaman Islands gained momentum after World War II.

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The Geological Survey of India (GSI) and the Oil and NaturalGas Commission (ONGC) of India played a key role andinitiated detailed geoscientific surveys in 1959, mainly throughgeological mapping coupled with structural, lithological andpalaeontological studies. Most of the reports were not pub-lished however, with the exception of Chatterjee (1964),Karunakaran et al. (1964a, b, 1968, 1975), Pawde & Ray(1964), Guha & Mohan (1965), Chatterjee (1967), Gururaja& Rao (1976), Ray (1982), Roy (1983) and Haldar (1985).The first publically accessible geological map of the AndamanIslands was confined to South Andaman and published in1964 at the 22nd International Geological Congress (IGC)held in New Delhi (Karunakaran et al. 1964a). A generalizedgeological map of the entire Andaman Island chain at a scale of1:1 000 000 was published in 1967 (Chatterjee 1967).Entrusted with finding oil and gas, the ONGC mapped largeareas of North and Middle Andaman (Pandey et al. 1992).During the late 1990s Pal and co-workers conducted detailedmapping of parts of South and North Andaman; the structuralattitudes of the ophiolites in their geological maps (Pal et al.2003) have, however, been questioned by Acharyya (2007)(see Chapter 7). The most recent publication of GSI(Bandyopadhyay & Moulik 2012) includes a 1:1 000 000scale geological map of the Andaman–Nicobar Islands.More detailed GSI geological maps exist for some areas, butthese are not yet in the public domain. To date, 6749 km2

out of a total area of 8249 km2 has been systematically mappedby the GSI.

Thematic work and resource characterization

Thematic mapping by GSI was underway by the early 1990s.This includes large-scale mapping in key areas to understandthe stratigraphic and structural relationships between ophiolitebasement and the overlying sedimentary cover. Coastal envi-ronmental studies were included in the geomorphologicalmapping of Andaman beaches, including the study of wavedynamics and beach processes in relation to accretion and ero-sion. ONGC conducted seismic studies across the AndamanIslands and offshore areas (Roy 1983) during the late 1970sto early 1980s, including ground-truthing by onshore and off-shore drilling in and around Middle and North Andaman (Roy1983; Pandey et al. 1992; Roy & Das Sharma 1993). Mineralinvestigation started with large-scale mapping and exploratorydrilling on Long Island, Middle Andaman during the late1980s led by the GSI, followed by a wider search for potentialdeposits of sulphide minerals, coal, gold and platinum groupminerals. Ghosh et al. (2009) studied chromite occurrencesin ultramafic rocks as well as beach sands across the AndamanIslands.

Since the middle–late 1990s, there has been a significantchange in the nature of investigations to couple field-basedobservations with more sophisticated petrological, geochemi-cal and isotopic techniques. Advanced petrological researchhas included: the study of major, trace and rare Earth ele-ments (REE) concentrations; Sm–Nd isotope chemistry; geo-chronology including U–Pb, 40Ar/39Ar and 14C methods andfission track thermochronology; and identification of mineralphases by electron probe micro-analysis (EPMA). These stud-ies have provided the first isotopic age constraints on deposi-tional and uplift history of the Palaeogene sedimentaryformations of the evolving Andaman–Nicobar accretionaryarc (Allen et al. 2008). REE geochemistry and the U–Pb dat-ing of zircon from plagiogranite of the ophiolite suite haveplaced robust age constraints on the formation and emplace-ment of ophiolite (Pedersen et al. 2010; Sarma et al. 2010;Pal 2011). Results from the study of light framework andopaque and non-opaque heavy minerals of the modern sands

using highly sophisticated petrographic techniques by Gar-zanti and co-workers at the University of Milano-Bicocca,Italy (Garzanti et al. 2013) have altered earlier concepts andapproaches to the study of sediment provenance in subductionzone sediments.

The National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) inHyderabad, India has also been involved in the study ofthe geochemistry of igneous and sedimentary rocks of theAndaman Ophiolite suite (Jafri et al. 1990, 1993, 1995; Jafri& Sheikh 2013). Awasthi et al. (2010) provided radiometricdates of ash layers interbedded with marine sediments froma drill core obtained from 32 km SE of Barren Island, andwere able to infer the timing and frequency of eruptions overthe past 72 ka.

Following the eruptions of May 1991, GSI conducted arolling program of research on the Barren Island and Narcon-dam volcanoes, later joined by academics from the IndianInstitute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai (see Chapter 12 fordetails). Haldar et al. (1992) provided a chronology ofhistorical and recent volcanic eruptions for Barren Island.This initial study, coupled with field documentation ofvolcanic features and petrographic, mineralogical and geo-chemical analysis of the fragmental ejecta (lava and coarserpyroclastic debris), led to the publication of a pictorial mono-graph on Barren volcano (Shanker et al. 2001). Sheth et al.(2009) provided a praiseworthy description and documenta-tion of features of the pre-historic volcanoes on Barren Islandand established the pre-historic eruptive history. While petro-logical and geochemical studies of past and current eruptions(Alam et al. 2004; Pal et al. 2007a, 2010) have helped toconstrain the origin and evolution of subsurface magma;however, poor documentation and incorrect interpretationsof the active lava flows and identification of lavas of parti-cular eruptions during the last two decades have left plentyof scope for re-examination and further work (see Chapter12 for details), partly provided by Bandopadhyay et al.(2014). Narcondam has seen much less study (Haldar et al.2007; Pal et al. 2007b; Pal & Bhattacharya 2011; Strecket al. 2011) after the pioneering work of Hobday & Mallet(1885) and Ball (1888).

Likewise, the Nicobar islands has seen less study com-pared to the main Andaman Islands. Distant location andaccessibility is one reason for this; the other is that manyof the islands are protected areas and reserved for indigenoustribal communities. The geology, geography and faunal con-tent of the rocks of Nicobar Islands were however studiedduring British rule, sometimes in remarkable detail (Rink1847; Hochstetter 1869; Ball 1870a; Tipper 1911; Gee1927), although these early studies do not appear to haveproduced any geological maps. Mapping programmes ledby GSI started in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and con-tinue to the present day. These have produced some geolog-ical maps now in the public domain, such as GSI MiscPublication no. 30, part XX, 2012. The Joint Scientific Expe-dition to Great Nicobar Island in 1966 provided an improvedand comprehensive picture of the geology of these islands,and linked the main rock units with those on the AndamanIslands (Karunakaran et al. 1975). The formations of GreatNicobar and Little Nicobar follow the same stratigraphicscheme as the Andaman islands.

Conclusions

Much has been achieved since the earliest mapping in the latenineteenth century but, given the complexity of Andamangeology, much disturbed by tectonics, there remains much todo, especially with regard to defining the ages of the mappedunits, a common theme in subsequent chapters.

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I sincerely thanks Prof. Andrew Carter for useful improvement in section

‘Colonial History’ and DST, Govt of India for financial support.

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INTRODUCTION: HISTORY 7

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